Lightning strikes woman inside supermarket

Monday

Jul 15, 2013 at 5:32 PMJul 16, 2013 at 11:00 AM

Lakeisha Brooks said it felt like hot oil running down her thigh.

Mary KilpatrickStaff Writer

Lakeisha Brooks said it felt like hot oil running down her thigh."Like when you're cooking, that pop," she said.Brooks was struck by lightning Monday in the checkout line of Rouses.As she stood next to the register buying milk and cereal, Brooks saw a flash and heard a loud crash."But I didn't realize it was over me," she said today. "It dimmed my eyes to where they were burning."She pushed her grocery cart away from her, trying to get her 2-year-old daughter away from the force.Then she felt it again."I felt like a breeze and then the pain came," she said.Lightning had blown her shoe straight off her foot."I had all of this black smut on the bottom," she said.Shocked, Brooks hopped away to the other side of the store. As she looked over her shoulder, she saw the lightning hit again."I didn't realize I had been struck by lighting until I saw it again," she said."A man there kept saying, ‘You never see lightning strike the same place twice. Well, it did.' "Brooks, a 33-year-old Houma native and mother of four who works in the Evergreen Junior High School cafeteria, said though she is burned and feels pain in her legs when she walks, said she feels blessed to be alive."First thing I said when I sat down was God is good," she said. Her 2-year-old, who saw her mother get struck by lightning twice, was still on edge this morning."She keeps asking, ‘Is everything OK?' "Brooks was paying for her items about 2:13 p.m. when a flash of lightning hit her inside the store at 561 Grand Caillou Road, Houma Fire District Chief Joe Mouton said. She was alert as she was taken to the hospital.Houma Police Chief Todd Duplantis said authorities suspect the lightning traveled through the store's sprinkler system.National Weather Service Meteorologist Gavin Phillips said he had never heard of someone being struck by lightning inside.A foot-wide blackened tile near a register marked the strike."I guess it's just one in a million," one store employee said.The business remained open after the incident.The odds of being struck by lightning in an average lifetime are about 1 in 6,250, according to the National Weather Service. In the U.S., there were about 60 people killed and 340 injured by lightning in 2008, the most recent year statistics are available.Brooks said she had always stayed inside during thunderstorms, but now thinks that may not be enough to stay safe."Just knowing it could happen inside a grocery store," she said, "it could happen anywhere."

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